Fighting Over Money You Pay Your ExDivorce Advice for Men on Child Support Disputes

Are you outraged about the money you pay your ex for child support? Do you spend a lot of time wondering what she does with your money that doesn’t involve support of your children? Do your thoughts about your money and your ex consume a great deal of your time and energy?

Fighting over money can wreck relationships and is one of the most significant sources of post-divorce conflict too. If you find yourself caught in this trap, you can benefit from understanding painful triggers and how to decide when to fight over the money you pay your ex.

I have four tips for managing money issues successfully with your ex post-divorce. If you can set aside all of the preconceptions you bring to the table about your ex-wife and your money, and how it impacts the children, you can do this.

That’s asking a lot, but your children’s happiness is worth it. You may need to re-frame the way you have been thinking of the ex since the divorce, but you can make the shift with some hard work and determination.

The first thing you can do is to recognize that money you pay your ex through child support is intended to equalize, to a limited degree, the homes in which the child lives. This means their mother may benefit from the child support too. This concept probably wasn’t introduced to you during your divorce negotiations, but makes it clear that it’s okay for an ex-wife to have some benefit from the child support payments. The idea is that when children have less disparity between the two households where they reside, it is good for them.

Also, your views about money should be considered. Have you always been a “cup half full” person? Do you worry that there isn’t enough to go around? Or do you always expect to have enough money but sometimes come up short?

Whatever the case, take notice of what you bring to the table regarding money, perhaps based on your childhood, and acknowledge it. Although you may want to think otherwise, your ex isn’t responsible for all of your money issues. You play a role in how you manage money, and how you think about money, and it’s up to you to take responsibility for this. If you can do that, and use the four tools below, you are well on the way to creating a system for keeping money in its place in your life and with the ex!

1. Recognize It’s Good for Your Children If Your Ex Isn’t Struggling Financially.

Simply put, child support is intended to equalize income, to some limited extent, between homes. Whatever your “beef” with your ex, don’t make this one of them. You cannot control how she spends the money so let that go. Assume she, like you, is doing the best she can to take care of your children too. If you’ve spent a long time believing otherwise, this isn’t an easy task. But, it’s an important one.

When you begin to let go of the need to “punish” your ex for perceived misdeeds of the marriage, or your divorce, it will help you to allow the space for her to move forward successfully too. The expression, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” applies here as your children are surely well served by having two financially secure parents.

2. Stop Talking About Money All the Time

Start by paying what you owe on time and not commenting negatively, for one month, on any money issues. If there is a real problem, you will deal with that, as needed. But, not right now. You should create a budget for yourself, including the money paid to your ex, and make a plan to live within it. If you consider the money paid to your ex simply part of your monthly operating expenses, rather than an unnecessary burden, it may be simpler to stop thinking about it all of the time. Take the steps necessary to limit focusing on it. That will help you and your children.

Also, free yourself from the repetitive mantra of, “She’s a witch and is spending all of my money.” Instead, if it’s impossible to see her as a partner in co-parenting right now, acknowledge, if nothing else, she has the kids when you don’t. It’s good for them to be happy and secure when they are not with you. Your money helps them. Period.

3. Don’t Talk to Your Kids About The Money You Pay Your Ex

There are no exceptions to this rule. Just don’t. They won’t think better of you if you tell them the money is all yours or that you are the only one who provides for them. They love their mom too, and they should, and this only makes them uncomfortable and insecure. You must choose to prioritize your children’s emotional health over your own need to feel as though you have somehow been victorious over your ex. There are no winners when children are put between their divorced parents. Their esteem is tied to what you say about their mother too.

4. Keep Your Disagreements Civil and Simple

You are well served to have a system in place to address disagreements that arise outside of court. Perhaps you can develop a quarterly reconciliation of expenses outside of support, preferably by email, that works for you. Limit your comments to the expense itself and do not infer intent in your communication with your ex. It doesn’t solve the problem and is likely to only heighten the conflict.

Think carefully before escalating the dispute to the legal arena. It is much preferred, for the benefit of your children, to consider mediating expense conflicts outside of court. As a last resort, take your disagreement to court. Of course, if your income changes and modification of an order is necessary, you may need to use the legal process. Just remember to keep it matter-of-fact and don’t make it personal to your ex. She has her own money pressures and adding your negative energy will only hurt your children.

You are Your Kid’s Example

You can decide when to fight over money you pay your ex. Knowing when to let it go is likely the most important thing you can do for your own well-being and to take care of your kids. Recognize when you are triggered by money and your ex and always take a pause. Use the four tools above to limit your unnecessary interaction with your kids and their mother over money and make a plan to address when there is a dispute. You have a choice and can only control how you behave. Make sure you do to benefit you and your children, now and into their adulthood. Teaching them how to manage money, even when it’s difficult will help them now and long into their future. It’s really up to you!

3 Comments

It is best to avail for mediation services in divorce proceedings. Mediators help to resolve issues in a more streamlined and faster way. They have knowledge about a lot of issues like for instance, one might not figure out which parent will pay for college tuition fee of the child, who will cover the child on car insurance? These issues get ignored if children are very young during the divorce, later on they pose problems.

States have nothing to do with or about child support. Title IV of Social Security Act is where you will find Support Enforcement the problem is is that it should be on a state level where is the state judges have all been bought and paid for by this grant money. The Constitution states that all things not delegated to the federal government like this nor prohibited to it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. This is why judges throw people in jail that can’t even pay it the federal government tells them to. this is a violation of the Constitution that the people mandated and written 200 years ago it is a crime an individual should not have to put up with the federal government in this aspect as far as that they’re going to tell an individual he has to go to jail and I in a civil matter it’s no business of the federal government so what you end up with is a state bullying its individual citizens to get this money from them even if they don’t have the money because their Grandma tells them to and if they don’t they don’t get their grant money which is about six hundred million dollars you will not find an impartial judge when it comes to this matter because they’ve all been bought and paid for this is a crime. the only thing they’re going to understand they are criminals they are breaking the law. do not pay your child support no matter what the cost support your children paying child support is not supporting your children you’re condemning your children to exactly the same unjustly end

Apparent parent would not support their children. The problem is is that child support does not have to be spent on your children it can be spent on your ex-wife’s boyfriend courts don’t care. They’re not required to enforce that part of the law that the federal government has imposed on the states this is all dealings and doings from the federal government and the state complying with mandates so they can get their grant money. Do you actually think anybody cares if you pay your child support or not the state doesn’t throw you in jail they lose a certain percentage of the grant money or that sticks hundred million dollars or whatever it is he here from the federal government that’s why the Constitution states all things not delegated to the federal government nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people now the federal government’s involved and people dying because of the outcome. I love my children and I will give my life up for them.